Inner Demons [Private/Training]

She gripped her sword tight, and chanelled her reishi into it. She focused on drawing out the spirit, and the blade began to crackle with mist and smoke, which as it left the zanpakuto began to coalesce. He had been taught this before, many times. It was always this juncture at which he failed, the point where his spirit refused. However, this time, with some difficulty, he managed to conjure the spirit of Sohan before him, the smoke stopping and forming the familiar sight of the zanpakuto spirit. He smiled at Arata once he was manifested and popped some muscles in his back, making an audible cracking noise, before performing a cartwheel across the meadow, nearly plummeting straight into the river. Ritsuko smiled weakly at it, before sighing. She had done it, but what now? What heinous trial would the two have to undergo. Many had to undertake a trial by combat. She didn't exactly look forward to that. She said no blood would be spilled but... Well they weren't on earth anymore were they. She stood, anxiously, knuckles pale from her tight grip on her sword. The demom, having had it's fun, approached Ritsuko with a grin. It was time.


The demonic spirit pointed at the area in the shade just under the oak tree. Small flecks of darkness began to appear there. They had no depth, they appeared to be artifacts on Ritsuko's vision at first. However more and more formed, until there was a strange cloud of solid black shards, floating in the space underneath the tree. Ritsuko readied her sword, but with a light grip on her arm, The demonic spirit got her to stay her hand. The shards of darkness began to form, and the clicked together and built up a large black rectangle, around which a simple wooden doorframe slowly materialized. So, it was a doorway? She looked uncertainly at the spirit.

"Step through the portal. Your trial awaits." the spirit said. Ritsuko frowned. "Not so certain any more?" It asked with a grin. Ritsuko furrowed her brow.

What's in there?" she asked, her voice faltering.

"Only what's in you." the spirit responded, cryptically. Ritsuko took a deep breath, and walked through the door.

Everything became blackness. Ritsuko continued to walk forward. There was something terrifying about that blackness. She ventured further and further, nothing surrounding her but pitch darkness, an oppressive, murky stain upon her eyes. The further she walked, the more scared she became, and the less her feet seemed to hold on the ground. No... It was as if the ground itself was not solid and more, and she was wading through darkness so thick that it seemed to suspend her in the centre of nothingness. Ritsuko wanted to turn back. Panic gripped at her heart. This was not natural. This could not be a part of him. She wanted to call out and scream. She bobbed up and down, fighting to stay upright and to continue walking forward. Somehow, Arata knew he must, he knew he absolutely had to keep fighting on. But she wanted to turn back, her every nerve and cell screamed to be out of that place. The darkness was not just outside of her body now, it was inside too. It was becoming familiar, and not in a good way. She felt everything being leeched from her mind, every thought, every sensation. Every sparse wisp of pleasure.


She wanted to turn around. She began desperately twisting her body. This feeling, this unescapable feeling of anhedonia, of depression, was a feeling she felt day in and day out. In this demon's world there was no happiness, no true sadness, no anger. Only a dreary grey exasperation, a subtle ennui that gnawed at her through thick and thin. It was so nihilistic, so empty that it caused him pain. How could she live each and every day like this, suffering so much without it even registering? She was astounded with himself, even as she struggled not to drown in the strange place she was now in. She had to escape. Turn around, and go back, and exit through the little white rectangle which seemed ever so far away. Had she really walked that far already? She became all of a sudden terrified of dying, realizing that she too could think and feel and experience. As opposed to being the creature of habit she was, doing things without thought, without reason. And she had done that now. Where had that got her!? She was angry for a split second before she felt himself sinking even further into the blackness. Why was she here?



She nearly called out to the demonic spirit, admiting defeat. Giving up entirely. Whe could seldom recall the highs and lows of her life before becoming a quincy. It was then an epiphany struck her, as she sank into the mire. She couldn't give up now. She could not renege on being a quincy. She physically couldn't. Before she was just a girl who could see spirits and was beaten up in a bootcamp in russia. Now she could truly help people. Heal the wounds of the sick and dying. As much as she hated her position sometimes, funamentally now she had the power to be a good person. Be a great person. To do the right thing, the kind of thing any person should do.

And turning around was not how to do that. Staying in the same place the whole time? That was not how to change oneself. Ritsuko was determined to change, determined to change now she had seen her own horrors from within, in such a visceral way.